Day Two on the Carnivore Diet (after having cheated/failed 5 times in 12 days previously)

Why am I here?


Mostly, it is to document my journey on the thirty-day trial I have undertaken to go on the carnivore diet.

I am assuming that keeping a blog will make me more conscientious about following my diet, and help me hold myself accountable (to myself, and other possible readers.)

It is also because I'm bored as heck, and what better way to keep myself occupied than to keep a blog/journal of this experiment I have embarked upon.

But the greatest reason I want to journal this journey is to record the changes I expect to see/experience in my health and well-being (both positive and negative.)

There are some aspects of this undertaking that I will purposely not document, because I do not want these markers to become the main goal of adopting this way of eating, such as my weight, or my measurements. These, I will kind of eyeball, and maybe see if I drop dress sizes. 

I will look for changes in my health, and be keenly mindful of these, and try my best to document them fully and truthfully.

Why carnivore?


To be honest, the decision has taken me as much by surprise as it has my family. I have always advocated eating a balanced diet, and the benefits of veggies, fruits and nuts; I have warned others of the dangers of eating steroid-ridden chicken, and heart-unhealthy red meats. I have consumed more fruits, nuts and vegetables than anyone else in my immediate family. 

Yet, at 51, I am experiencing the beginnings of joint pain, insomnia, anxiety, weight gain about my mid-section, and other minor health issues. Of course, some of these could be attributed to menopause, and accurately so. 

However, after some initial research on the carnivore WOE, I have begun to suspect that some of these early ailments could be caused by deficiencies in my diet. I have not included as much meat in my diet in the past as I should have. Thus protein deficiency, along with the deficiency of the many vitamins and other nutrients meats have to offer, may be the actual culprit behind these relatively new aches and  ailments. Hence my decision to eat meats daily for the next month is mainly to see if my health improves.

What have I decided to eliminate in my diet, and what to incorporate

I plan to eat eggs, chicken, beef, mutton, salt, water and (I am sorry for this weakness) unsweetened milk tea every day. I plan to incorporate fish into my diet when the weather becomes cooler. 

Everything else, I plan to eliminate initially. Once I get used to this WOE, I may even consider  eliminating tea altogether. Let's see how this thing rolls for me.

The previous 12 days

So.....  I actually decided to begin this diet on 19th August. I fell of the wagon several times (5 times, to be exact) and ate a variety of carbs and sugar-laced foods in these 5 days. These foods included pasta from Wang Wang, brownies, a bun-kebab, parathas from Alamgir (twice!), falooda, a vanilla ice-cream cone (with nuts), bananas, sesame laddus, dates, and dinner at Mandi (chicken, beef, mutton, rice, chapati, chatnis) which culminated in the rich, ultra-sweet kunafa!!! 😬

But for the five days I cheated, let's not forget that I stuck to the strict carnivore diet for the other 7 says. And those seven days were not all good days (more about this later.)

Come Saturday, I berated myself thoroughly, and also my family for allowing me to go on cheating so. 1st September saw me vowing afresh to stick to the carnivore diet for the next month, and here I am on my blog to share what went down previously and what will come in the days ahead.

What went down in the other 7 days...

The day I began this diet, I couldn't finish the first 200 gram portion of minced beef fried in butter and sprinkled with salt. The last few bites I had to force down with water, and some days I could feel nausea towards the end of the meal. I skipped breakfast all these days, taking only tea in the mornings. I did not adhere to a strict time for meals, eating one or two meals any time between 1 and 8pm daily. I did, however, try to keep my eating window between 4 to 6 hours, and ate no meat/eggs till the next day.

Even if I ate just 1 meal a day, I felt full, and more energised - especially more energetic in the mornings. I noticed that the urge to eat snacks in between and even the craving for carbs and sugar disappeared by day 5.

I did suffer from headaches for the first week, and I am certain this was due to sugar withdrawal. Prior to the carnivore WOE, I had already cut out most carbs and refined, bleached sugar to a great extent from my daily diet. 

Most newbies to this WOE complain about suffering from diarrhoea, and the explosive kind at that! I was a tad afraid of this, but to my surprise, no such volcanic eruption occurred. In fact, in the last 2 days straight of being a carnivore, I became constipated. The marked difference between the constipation that I had suffered regularly in the past and the one I experienced this time was that I felt neither bloated nor uncomfortable in the slightest. I felt as if I actually had barely any waste to get rid of.

There was a noticeable decrease in bloating and gas. I found I was being forced to use my core muscles which I had forgotten even existed! My face and waistline became noticeably smaller in size, but the consecutive 3 cheat days towards the end of August added all of the lost weight back on my tummy with a vengeance! My skin looked better. Some joints felt better. My sleep alternated between deep uninterrupted 8 hours on some nights, and fitful broken sleep spanning 5 to 7 hours on other nights. The cheating was the reason for this, I can say with certainty.

A very, very surprising and pleasant change was in my mood. The constant, consistent bad mood (nearing depression on some days) went away. I woke up feeling almost happy on most days, especially after a solid 8-hour sleep. I began to look forward to doing things which previously irked me no end, for example going out for minor reasons or doing something positive or entertaining for myself.

For me, this change has been surprisingly a more positive experience so far, although it is far to early to come to any profound or final judgement. As I document the experience for the whole month, a clearer picture will emerge. By the end of this month, I will be able to decide whether I wish to continue being a barbaric meat-eater, or to return to the more modern man's idea of the balanced diet.

Time will tell.

Till next time,

Shazia

 

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